In recent history, computers have become much more pervasive in society. In addition, they have become more powerful, faster and have significantly more storage than they did just a few short years ago. These exponential increases in speed, storage and processor power have provided the necessary infrastructure for computers to network together effectively.
The most publicized computer network in existence is referred to as the Internet. The Internet is a connection of computers using the TCP/IP protocol. This has evolved into what is now referred to as the world wide web which provides a somewhat cognitive interface into the Internet. The world wide web allows users to access information by indicating the location of the information which they desire to retrieve or by traversing hyper-text links which cross-reference information in many different locations. This is made possible by the implementation of a universal resource locator (URL) as a way of locating information on the world wide web.
Many products have been developed which assist the user in searching the web for information. Access to the world wide web can be accomplished very inexpensively using a phone line, an inexpensive computer and a software program called a web browser such as Netscape's Navigator.RTM.. This ability to inexpensively connect into the world wide web has encouraged its use for much more than business purposes. The world wide web is used for educational research, shopping, games, making reservations, trading stock and numerous other purposes. Children, as well as adults, are frequent users of the world wide web.
While it was the advent of two dimensional graphically intense web sites that spurred the popularity of the Internet, the next level of technology may bring Internets, internal networks such as intranets, and networks in general to a new level. The intent of this phase of Internet development has been to render web sites sensually. That is, a user interacts with or exists within a site and experiences and perceives the site from within. This is referred to as Virtual Reality and is intended to perceptualize the network or to have the network rendered to humans with more of their senses. It puts the user in the center of the Internet.
While Virtual Reality is still in its infancy, it traditionally uses computer simulations containing three-dimensional (3D) graphics and devices to allow the user to interact with the simulation. Much of what the user has been able to browse as "data" on the web may be able to be `experienced` as a 3D web site in the future. 3D web sites are constructed with a Virtual Reality Modeling Language, herein referred to as VRML, which allows for the design and implementation platform-independent scene descriptions. VRML is a file format for describing interactive 3D objects and worlds to be experienced on the world wide web utilizing HTTP (A HyperText Transfer Protocol used on the Internet) in its implementation.
In today's virtual reality environments when a user enters a virtual world they take on a character persona known as the user's avatar. While the user is present in the world the user sees through the eyes of the avatar as they communicate with other avatars. The user can also signal the avatar to execute a range of emotions or actions that are viewable by any avatars looking their direction. Such actions could be waving hello or could involve handing a virtual object to another user. When objects are delivered in a virtual world, currently they are delivered with the appearance created by the object's or world's author.
Given the direct appearance of objects exchanged in a virtual world there is no simple method to hide the object's appearance or deliver additional information about the object or its owner. As virtual worlds come to mirror the physical world, the ability to hide objects until the receiver satisfies some security check is becoming more and more desirable. Further, it would be advantageous for an object container to communicate information to a user in forms similar to advertisements or copyright descriptions. The state of virtual world designs today do not offer these capabilities.